Physicist Speculates on Possible Existence of Dragon Ball’s Room of Spirit and Time

One of the most interesting narrative elements introduced in the Dragon Ball franchise is the Room of Spirit and Time. Debuting in the Android Arc, the Room appeared when characters needed to train for a long period of time in a short period of time. This is only possible because one day spent in the Room is equivalent to one year. While this is a fantastic concept, in a recent interview published in Shueisha‘s V-jump In an article published in the magazine, Dr. Nobuyoshi Ohta, an expert on elementary particles and gravity, speculated that a place like the Hall could actually exist.

Originally published on the Dragon Ball website in July 2023, Dr. Ohta’s interview resurfaced in the August 2024 issue of V-jumpAlthough this is a condensed version of the interview, Dr. Ohta talked about how one might create a mind-time room, or at least create the conditions to create one.

To put it simply, creating the room would require two locations with different gravitational forces. The physicist explained, “Time moves slower where gravity is stronger.” He then explained this by comparing a person standing on Earth to another person orbiting the planet in a space station. In other words, it’s time dilation.

So, using the principles of time dilation in relation to gravity, how could one recreate the room? Well, Dr. Ohta suggested a few possibilities. The first of these is this: “…throw your enemies into an existing location with stronger gravity, and while your enemy is there, continue training in a location without strong gravity.” Among the locations Dr. Ohta recommended, he mentioned Jupiter and the Sun.

Yet when asked to create a time gap of one day to one year, the physicist postulated the limit of a black hole’s event horizon. His exact words were: “Time slows down as you get closer to the event horizon. But you also don’t want a black hole that’s too small. That’s because for smaller black holes, even if you got closer to the event horizon, the force of gravity would increase.”

In the longer interview on the Dragon Ball On his website, Dr. Ohta also explained in detail how the Room of Spirits and Time could have a gravity 10 times stronger than Earth’s. This is an interesting question because in the series, the protagonist Son Goku notes that the Room is as large as Earth. Since there is no discussion regarding the density of the Room, Dr. Ohta postulated two possibilities. The first is that the characters are warped to a planet that has a gravitational force stronger than Earth. The second is that the Room is constantly accelerating.

To explain the warping, Dr. Ohta talked about the principles of space folding. However, he mentioned, “For this to work, you would have to be able to access the world above the third dimension… The only difficulty here is that no research has found evidence of a world with more than three dimensions.” So, while plausible, the research is not conclusive. For the constant acceleration, however, he explained how we feel gravity when we are accelerating. Hence his hypothesis that the room is constantly accelerating.

If Dr. Nobuyoshi Ohta’s assumptions are correct, we could have a real room of mind and time. Of course, it would have to be in a place where gravity is lower than our opponents’ and acceleration is potentially constant. So, perhaps the opposite of Bulma’s gravity training room.

Sources: V-jump August 2024 issue, Dragon BallWebsite of